What is a crisis?

A crisis doesn’t have to be dramatic. We define a crisis as anything that can affect public trust in you or your organization, or negatively impact your organization’s morale. These crises are threats to our stability, security, and values, and our body and brain are wired to respond to threats in a specific way. They trigger our fight, flight, or freeze instincts.

That means that your brain and body are programmed to stop thinking and start reacting to protect you.And it’s almost never a good idea to go with your fight, flight, or freeze instinct when a crisis hits.

That’s because the crises you’ll encounter aren’t just about you. They affect your customers, your team, your employees, your boss, your investors, your community. We are never completely unconnected in a crisis. And if we let our instincts take over, we act in ways that only protect ourselves, and don’t consider the needs of the other people affected by the crisis.That’s why companies in crisis struggle with people playing politics. The crisis makes everyone – very rightly – concerned about their jobs, their security, whether or not they’ll have health insurance next month, whether they’ll lose everything they invested. And their instincts push them to focus on self-preservation.

It’s not voluntary.Your body is programmed to react that way in a crisis, and your body sucks at nuance. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone pulling a gun on us, or a scandal threatening our corporate finances, or a sudden drop in the economy. We’re biologically wired to respond to any perceived threat that way. Your body’s stress response doesn’t differentiate between an immediate threat – like a gun to your face – and a non-physical threat to your business or finances. A threat is a threat, and you should expect to react the way you’re programmed to react. With out special training, it’s almost impossible to walk into a crisis without triggering those responses.

That’s where we come in. Our team is specially trained and has years of experience helping people recognize those harmful responses, create better plans, and face crises more effectively. Whether it’s a government project that’s $60 million over budget, an unflattering news story that triggers arguments within an organization, or an executive team trying to address an ethical problem – we can help you get your project back on track, mitigate damage from mistakes and failed projects, and fix problems ethically and honestly.